Hi figer, In COM terminology DOC and PPT files are called as Active Documents By my personal experence you must start reading about Active Document, Active Document Server, Active Document Containers etc. Okay so you want to display the DOC, PPT etc files inside your appication... For this purpose your application must be an Active Document Container... For more information search the microsoft KB articles named "DSOFramer" I have strong felling, this is what you wanted... :-O And about Office Automation. If the above concepts are clear then I dont think Office Automation is an issue.... Have fun buddy ! Happy programming :) Cheers, Vishal